1. "The Principal And The Pauper"
Seen by most fans as being one of the most controversial Simpsons episodes ever, "The Principal and the Pauper" will go down in infamy. In 1997, long-term character Seymour Skinner was shown to be an impostor, and that his real name was in fact 'Armin Tamzarian', before stealing the real Skinner's identity. This plotline was met with overwhelming negativity by much of the Simpsons' fan-base, and has been pinpointed as the moment the long-running show's "Golden Age" abruptly ended. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script,
he delivered the following withering rebuke to the show's writers:
"That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience."
Unfortunately, the episode still aired, and so began the decline of the Simpsons.
What do you think are the most controversial moments from the Simpsons? Did we miss any out? Let us know in the comment section, below.